Memory: A History(Oxford Philosophical Concepts)

In recent decades, memory has become one of the major concepts and a dominant topic in philosophy, sociology, politics, history, science, cultural studies, literary theory, and the discussions of trauma and the Holocaust. In contemporary debates, the concept of memory is often used rather broadly and thus not always unambiguously. For this reason, the clarification of the range of the historical meaning of the concept of memory is a very important and urgent task. This volume shows how the concept of memory has been used and appropriated in different historical circumstances and how it has changed throughout the history of philosophy. In ancient philosophy, memory was considered a repository of sensible and mental impressions and was complemented by recollection-the process of recovering the content of past thoughts and perceptions. Such an understanding of memory led to the development both of mnemotechnics and the attempts to locate memory within the structure of cognitive faculties. In contemporary philosophical and historical debates, memory frequently substitutes for reason by becoming a predominant capacity to which one refers when one wants to explain not only the personal identity but also a historical, political, or social phenomenon. In contemporary interpretation, it is memory, and not reason, that acts in and through human actions and history, which is a critical reaction to the overly rationalized and simplified concept of reason in the Enlightenment. Moreover, in modernity memory has taken on one of the most distinctive features of reason: it is thought of as capable not only of recollecting past events and meanings, but also itself. In this respect, the volume can be also taken as a reflective philosophical attempt by memory to recall itself, its functioning and transformations throughout its own history.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Memory in Recollection of Itself Dmitri Nikulin Chapter 1: Memory in Ancient Philosophy Dmitri Nikulin Reflection: Roman Art and the Visual Memory of Greece Francesco de Angelis Chapter 2: Memory in Medieval Philosophy Jörn Müller Reflection: Visual Memory and a Drawing Villard de Honnecourt and Ludovico Geymonat Chapter 3: Memory in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period Stephen Clucas Reflection: Memory and Forgetfulness in Daoism Xia Chen Chapter 4: Forms of Memory in Classical German Philosophy Angelica Nuzzo Reflection: Memory and Story-Telling in Proust Mieke Bal Chapter 5: Memory in Continental Philosophy: Metaphor, Concept, Thinking Nicolas de Warren Reflection: Freud and Memory Eli Zaretsky Chapter 6: Trauma, Memory, Holocaust. Michael Rothberg Reflection: Memory: An Adaptive Constructive Process Daniel Schacter Chapter 7: Memory in Analytic Philosophy Sven Bernecker Reflection: The Recognitional Structure of Collective Memory Axel Honneth Chapter 8: Memory and Culture Jan Assmann

About the Author :
Dmitri Nikulin is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. His interests range from ancient philosophy and early modern science to the philosophy of dialogue and philosophy of history.

Review :
"This is a rich collection and valuable for anyone seeking to explore the dependence of recent developments in memory studies on philosophical thought...What Memory: A History decisively demonstrates is that our current obsession with memory has a history." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online "The resulting historico-reflective account of the philosophical concept of memory offers a comprehensive treatment of the topic that has grown into an interdisciplinary discourse dominating the humanities today." -- Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal